In my last article, I explored classic cards that had their creature types updated over the years, resulting in higher relevance thanks to the typal theme of Bloomburrow. Of the newest set's ten creature type themes, I focused on three: Rabbits, Frogs, and Lizards. If you're curious to learn about the very first creatures that fall within these types, I encourage you to check out that article.

While authoring the piece, I quickly realized I was running out of room with yet more to discuss. Therefore, this article will act as part two to in this theme. This time, I'll focus on just one of Bloomburrow's creature types, which includes many classic creatures that had their types updated over the years: Birds!

Birds are not only some of my favorite creatures in Magic, but they also have a rich history dating back to the game's beginning. Not only are these classic creatures ubiquitous throughout Magic's history, but they also experienced a bit of an evolution over the years. In fact, some of Magic's first Birds looked nothing like they do in Bloomburrow! Many were Red and Green, and some of them didn't even fly (we're not talking penguins here)!

Such lesser-known gems may be worth scrounging for in order to surprise friends when they hit the battlefield in a casual game of Magic. If nothing else, they provide an interesting historical perspective capturing the ongoing evolution of the game as its creators thought about creature types in general.

Birds: A Personal History

I have a personal attachment to Birds of Magic. In fact, one of the oldest "serious" decks I ever built was themed around these flying creatures. Inspiration came to me when I cracked open a booster pack of Judgement and stumbled upon Soulcatchers' Aerie.

The idea that I could cast a bunch of Birds, trade them off in combat, and grow each subsequent bird I cast seemed like a powerful strategy. Then I read about a typal theme in an issue of InQuest Magazine, and I did my best to recreate the powerful strategy using the cards I had at hand. Funnily enough, of the two decks I still have intact from when I was a kid, the Birds deck is one of them. What do you think?

You can tell this is an old deck based on four distinct characteristics:

1) The cards aren't in sleeves. When every card shows the same amount of significant wear, you still couldn't predict which one was on top of your deck!

2) Second, the deck was 63 cards. Sometimes I would open a new Bird from a booster pack, and I'd throw it in simply because it was on theme. That's how I ended up with so many singleton copies of cards.

3) There's no streamlining of the decklist. The only cards I ran as a full playset in the deck were Airborne Aid, Soulcatchers' Aerie, and Welkin Hawk. My basic lands were horrendously mismatched, and I ran two blac- bordered Portents and one white bordered Portent. I'm sure the list should have run four Soulcatchers, but I played the cards I owned.

4) The only new-border card in the deck is Courier Hawk, printed in Ravnica in 2005. That was the last card to be added to the list, making this iteration of the decklist 19 years old and frozen in time.

This deck was quite powerful amongst my small playgroup. When my friends wizened to the fact that I wanted to trade off my creatures in combat, leading to many chump attacks, they shifted strategies. That's where Jinxed Idol and Seaside Haven come in--they allowed me to sacrifice my Birds, directly pumping the rest of them with Soulcatchers' Aerie. It was a thing of brilliance.

Birds: A Lesson in History and Biology

While my Birds deck included many classic cards from the twentieth century, even this beloved list didn't include some of Magic's earliest Bird creatures. This is partly because I didn't own them, and partly because they were different colors.

To find the original Bird creatures, we need to go all the way back to the beginning of the game in 1993. In Limited Edition Alpha we saw the printing of Roc of Kher Ridges, a 3/3 flying Red creature and the famous Birds of Paradise, a 0/1 flying Green creature.

Roc of Kher Ridges was initially classified as a Roc and Birds of Paradise were Mana Birds, but today they are both errata'd to be a Bird creature type. While a 3/3 flyer for four mana doesn't seem all that impressive nowadays, back in 1993 this rare creature packed a significant punch, and was a decent budget option for those who couldn't afford the coveted Shivan Dragon. Of course, Birds of Paradise needs no further explanation as to how powerful the card is.

In Magic's first expansion, Arabian Nights, we saw a new card that was initially printed as an Egg, but eventually was updated to be a Bird Egg. Thus, the next Bird card printed in Magic was also Red, but this one couldn't even fly! Rukh Egg was a 0/3 creature that had to die in order to create your flying Red Rukh creature. Despite being an egg at first, this card does count as a Bird for those keeping score.

Some of Magic's next Bird creatures also looked and functioned a bit differently from what we see today. Consider Clockwork Avian from Antiquities and Whippoorwill from The Dark.

The former was initially printed as an Artifact Creature, which didn't receive any subtype back in the day. It's pretty clear now that this deserves to be a bird. As for Whippoorwill...how come this Bird creature is Green? Not only that, it didn't fly and had a weird stops-regenerating ability. This is not what you'd expect from the creature type nowadays, is it? While originally printed as a Whippoorwill (a real bird species, named onomatopoeically after its song), the creature was ultimately, and correctly, updated to be a Bird.

Starting in 1995, Bird creatures created by Wizards were often White and Blue, and a bit more consistent with what we'd come to expect. There was Silver Erne from Ice Age (printed as an Erne), Giant Albatross from Homelands (Summon Albatross), and Carrier Pigeons from Alliances (Summon Pigeon).

Each of these original birds were classified based on their species, rather than their Class (Aves). Therefore, you had Whippoorwills, Ernes (also known as Sea Eagles), Albatrosses, Rocs, and Pigeons each with their own unique creature type. Thankfully, Wizards of the Coast started streamlining Bird creatures in Magic shortly thereafter.

Before that update, however, there were a few more species that slipped through the cracks. There are numerous Falcons in Magic, which have all since been updated to be Birds. This includes Bay Falcon, Windreaper Falcon, Freewind Falcon, and Zephyr Falcon. There were enough Falcons, in fact, that Wizards even printed a Falcon lord in Homelands, named Soraya the Falconer!

Don't worry, the card has since been updated to grant all Birds +1/+1. If I had known that back in 2005, I would have probably tried testing this creature out in my Birds deck. Except it wasn't a Bird itself, so perhaps it didn't fit the theme after all.

Three additional creatures that appeared on a card before they all became generic Birds include another Roc, a Chicken, and a Rooster: Crimson Roc from Mirage, Mesa Chicken from Unglued, and Zodiac Rooster from Portal: Three Kingdoms.

Zodiac Rooster has the honor of not only being one of Magic's only Roosters, but also one of its first Plainswalkers (pun intended).

Beginning with Urza's Destiny in 1999, any creature that fell into the Aves class started to receive the generic creature type "Bird." By the time Onslaught block came around, and we saw massive printing of Bird creatures, this creature type was the default classifier for these critters. Strangely enough, there was one other Bird creature that was mis-classified after 1999. That card was Pit Raptor, from Prophecy.

I know Prophecy had this whole Rebels and Mercenaries thing going on, but it seems bizarre that Wizards of the Coast labeled Pit Raptor as a Mercenary without the additional Bird subtype. Then again, when I think of a "raptor" my mind goes to dinosaurs because of "Velociraptor," but I guess a raptor is technically a bird of prey. I learned something new today.

There's one more Bird creature that I want to highlight because it was initially printed without the Bird subtype: Kangee, Aerie Keeper.

Wow I wish I had seen this card back when I built my Bird deck! This creature is a do-it-yourself Soulcatchers' Aerie, pumping all your Birds immediately as long as you have enough mana to fund that kicker cost! Perhaps I had a copy of the card back in the day, but I didn't include it because it wasn't printed as a Bird. Instead, it was merely a Legend, and I would not have known if it counted as a Bird as a result. Nowadays the creature is classified as a Legendary Bird Wizard, but since the only reprint of this card is on The List, there are no copies printed with the correct creature subtypes!

Wrapping It Up

As you can see, Birds have a vast history in Magic. The first handful of Bird creatures were Red and Green, and it wasn't until a few years later that they started showing up most frequently in White and Blue. Not all Birds flew back in the day, even though their corresponding species flew in real life. These weren't penguins and ostriches here--Whippoorwills can fly in real life, so they should have flown in Magic as well!

Now, with the release of Bloomburrow, we see a much more organized and streamlined creature type to build around. Thanks to power creep, it wouldn't surprise me if the newer Bird cards outclassed many of the classics printed in pre-Modern sets. If you're looking for some flair to include in your Bird decks, however, I think it's worth examining some of the older cards for the occasional hidden gem.

The older Bird cards may not increase your win percentage, but they are likely to spark conversation about bird species and their place in Magic's history. Sometimes, such reminiscing can be just as fun as winning!